Ghantewala sues SRK for featuring its box of sweets in Fan

The taste of any good viand will linger long after it has been ingested and digested. And the same goes for the reputation of the brand and the purveyors of such gourmet delights, presumably. By its own reckoning, the famous Ghantewala sweet shop of Shahjahanabad’s Chandni Chowk had been sating the sweet cravings of Dilliwalas ever since the feckless Shah Alam II ascended the Mughal throne.

It is a sad tale of our diabetic times — if not the onslaught of other sweet options tempting the desi palate — that the shop finally had to down its shutters last year amid much sadness. So, the current owner Sushant Jain, a descendant of the founder, should have been happy that a box of mithai bearing that iconic name had a minor role in another badshah’s latest offering, Fan, particularly as Shah Rukh Khan’s empire stretches far further than Shah Alam’s ever did. But it seems to have left a bitter taste.

It was remiss of Khan’s company not to seek the owner’s permission before featuring a box with Ghantewala’s nowimaginary offerings. But by suing the superstar, Jain has revived the sweet shop’s memory in an increasingly fickle world. The best-case scenario for any future legal battle, however, is the prospect of a financial settlement in favour of the litigant prompting the reopening of the Ghantewala store!